Monthly Archives: October 2016

My passion for ghost stories has led me to watch countless horror flicks and boy, are a lot of them bad.

I get it. Filmmakers want to make a ‘scary movie’; they come up with a premise, find a atmospheric location, throw in some neat effects…and then crap out on the storyline.

So many films start out with such promise! They lure me in with an intriguing set up and my tender, black heart eagerly anticipates a satisfying horror. But somehow the plot takes a backseat to cheap scares and about halfway through all notions of story structure fall apart. We are left with an unsatisfactory ending rendering the whole thing rather pointless.

Man, I hate that!

This is not the case with the 2007 Spanish film The Orphanage (El orfanato) directed by J.A. Bayona and produced by Guillermo del Toro.

With the tragic passing of Zacherley, while those of us who love horror will mourn this legend, there are also some of us from a certain place and certain time who are also mourning the long ago loss of someone just as special, Dr. Shock.

My knowledge of Eli Roth’s film career is fairly limited. That said, I loved 2002’s Cabin Fever (just watched it a few years ago) and thought Roth was great in both that and in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. So I was looking forward to seeing what Hostel had to offer.

Sometimes movies just crash and burn and all we can do is watch. Such was the case with the one big release this weekend at the box office. Here’s what went down:

Tyler Perry must be smiling this morning, as it appears in the weekend estimates that Boo! A Madea Halloween has remained on top of the box office for the second weekend in a row. The film is looking at $16.67 million, which would raise its two week total to just north of $50 million. More impressive, however, is the fact that last week the film managed to keep Tom Cruise from the top of the box office, while this week it held off Tom Hanks. Ouch!

Monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and Godzilla have had dozens of movies made about them, some good and some bad, but why is it that Jaws, a monster all too real, who chased folks out of the water for years, and made his debut in a near-perfect film, can’t get a decent sequel made? We’ll try to find out after the jump, when I look at the spawn of Jaws…

Horror movies are the name of the game for many during this season, but not so much for me. In fact, since July, the name of the game for me is Pokémon GO. “Yes, I’m one of those,” I have answered many an exasperated questioner. Love it, hate it, or never played it, and despite the drop-off in players since the initial craze, millions of people are in hot pursuit of cute creatures in augmented reality. October 26th saw the release of the Halloween update of Pokémon GO, and there will be special treats in the game through November 1st. I tested out the Halloween Pokémon experience Wednesday night on South Street in Philadelphia.

War Machine is dead. She-Hulk is barely alive after a coma. The Hulk is dead, killed by Hawkeye. And now Spider-Man might kill Captain America? Is this really what we want in a comic book? Are readers that bloodthirsty that we’ve entered the era where Rollerball and Death Race are almost real? Surely it can’t be that bad, or as Civil War II #6 rolls out the week before one of the most insane US Presidential elections in history, is it? Or perhaps there is a more sinister reason behind all this. Meet me after the jump for my admittedly dark pre-Halloween pre-election thoughts on Civil War II #6…

Well we’re deep into the spooky season with Halloween just a few days away. You’ve watched Friday the 13th and The Exorcist. You were beaten senseless by The Walking Dead’s latest round of audience trolling. Maybe it’s time to mix it up, head off the well-trodden path and get a little weird with your scary. So I give you a few words to roll around in anticipation. Kurt Russell. Western. Cannibal troglodytes. Piqued your curiosity? Then saddle up, hoss. We’re gonna ride and have a jaw about Bone Tomahawk.

Things are looking to heat up at the box office this weekend, with the return of a successful franchise. Will this new installment set fire or flame out? Here’s our prediction:

Inferno is a brand new Robert Langdon film, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. The previous films, 2006’s The DaVinci Code and 2009’s Angels and Demons, made over $200 million and $100 million respectively, and this film will likely fall slightly lower than the last movie, considering its horrible reviews (27% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing). Hanks is coming off Sully, which was critically and commercially successful, along with a strong showing on last week’s Saturday Night Live, so Inferno should at least have a decent opening. Look for a first place showing with $28 million.

With Ghost Rider and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the same side, will they be able to find the Darkhold before it’s too late, or does fate have other threats in store for them at Eli Morrow’s prison? Things get tense in jail and the new Director makes a startling announcement on live television, all this and more, after the jump, in my thoughts on “Lockup.”